Royal Wedding Recollections: Amalia of Solms-Braunfels & Frederick Henry, future Prince of Orange

The wedding ceremony that took place on 4 April 1625 was quite austere as the groom’s brother lay dying. Nevertheless, he had made his brother promise to marry.

The bride and groom were Amalia of Solms-Braunfels and Frederick Henry, soon-to-be Prince of Orange. His brother Maurice had regretted not marrying and fathering heirs himself, and as he took to his bed, he summoned his brother to him and told him to marry sooner rather than later.

Amalia of Solms-Braunfels was a noblewoman who had served at the court of Elizabeth Stuart, the exiled Queen of Bohemia, in The Hague. She and Frederick Henry were cousins as her grandmother, Elisabeth, was a sister of Frederick Henry’s father. She had been his lover for a while, and as there was no more time for an extensive search for a more elusive bride, he settled on Amalia. The Venetian ambassador wrote, “She possesses nothing more than her rich beauty.”¹

Frederick Henry took his brother’s advice, and on 29 March, he announced to the States General that he was to be married. They responded by sending Amalia a wedding gift of F20,000, and the civil wedding took place on 2 April, with the religious ceremony to follow two days later. This would happen without the necessary dispensation of the calling of the wedding bans on three subsequent Sundays due to Maurice’s impending death.² This was eventually granted by the States General.³

The wedding took place in the Kloosterkerk in The Hague. On the morning of the wedding, the Queen of Bohemia told her former lady-in-waiting, “My unhappiness is your happiness, Madame!”⁴ Elizabeth later wrote, “I ame sure you heere alreadie of this Prince of Orenfes marriage with one of my woemen, she is a Countesse of Solms daughter to Count Solmes that [sic] serued the King of Bohemia at Heidleberg, I dout not but you remember him by his red face and her mother by her fatness, she you neuer saw but two of her sisters she is verie handsome and good.”⁵

Just eight days after the wedding, Frederick Henry was forced to leave his new wife behind to rejoin the army. Maurice would die on 23 April.

Amalia soon fulfilled her primary duty, and she gave birth to a son, the future William II, Prince of Orange, on 27 May 1626.

1. Frederik Hendrik by J.G. Kikkert p.48
2. Moeders uit ons vorstenhuis p.73
3. De vorstinnen van het Huis Oranje-Nassau p.130
4. De vorstinnen van het Huis Oranje-Nassau p.133
5. Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart Volume I edited by Nadine Akkerman p.532